Against Nature

by Casey Barrett

  “Not until you tell me what’s happening.”

  It was pointless to argue with her. All communication between employees would be vetted first by the lady of the house.

  “They were tailing us on the Long Island Expressway, on our way to LaGuardia.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Miami,” I said. Then wished I hadn’t. “We need to investigate something down there.”

  I listened to her breath as she digested that, deciding whether to push for details or plate it until later. “They followed you to the airport?” she asked.

  “No, when we got off on the Grand Central, they kept going, heading east on 495. Gave us a Nazi salute out the window. That’s it. Now can I talk to your bodyguard?”

  I heard her steps across the cavernous apartment, finding Terrance, then his hard voice on the line.

  “You have something to report to us, Mr. Darley?” he asked.

  “Listen, you guys need to run some plates,” I said. “A white Ford Explorer, recent model. New York plates, DKY 2117, you writing this down?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Who was behind the wheel?”

  “Same guy who’s been fucking with me, probably the same one behind the note about the kid. Said his name was Oliver, no last name. He was following us on the LIE. When we got off, he kept heading east on 495.”

  “You’re sure it was the same guy?” he asked.

  “Positive.”

  “Was he alone?”

  “No, there was the other guy, his boss, sitting shotgun. Same one I mentioned, older, early fifties, serious. Thin blond hair, hollow cheeks, he was wearing aviators.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Darley,” he said. “We’ll look into it.”

  “You do that.”

  “Check in when you land,” he said.

  I heard the dial tone in my ear. Typical SEAL, I thought, the heavyweight champs of military arrogance. Everything is a yawn compared to the incomparable hardships they endured.

  I’d known one well, my coach Teddy Marks. A man I once admired more than any figure of authority in my life. And what became of him? He paid for his arrogance in the end.

  Inside the terminal I checked in at a kiosk and searched for Cass. Spotted her toward the front of the security line. I handed my ID and boarding pass to a bored TSA agent, waited for her to glance up and confirm my identity. Joined the queue. The snakes had stopped rattling upstairs. I knew the hangover would descend again at thirty thousand feet. A Beam or two and a nap would help. I wondered what awaited us in Miami, wondered what Cass had in mind. Did she intend to storm into the BioVida offices and confront Dr. Lipke? Was she envisioning some sort of stakeout?

  My knowledge of South Florida was limited, but the town left an impression. I once tracked a cheating art dealer down to Art Basel. I’d been impressed with the guy. He was pushing sixty and I watched him blow lines and down magnums of champagne, before taking a pair of models back to his suite at the Raleigh. He must have been chopping blue lines of Viagra to go with the coke, because when those models emerged at six a.m., they had that unmistakable freshly fucked look. One even walked with a slight limp. I snuck my pictures from a lobby club chair by the elevators and returned to the city and presented the tawdry evidence to his second wife. She made off with more than the first.

  I remembered the BioVida offices were in Coral Gables, a neighborhood whose name rang a bell, but I’d never been. I pictured strip malls of boutiques and avenues lined with palm trees and hair-gelled machismos climbing out of red sports cars. I wondered how Dr. Lipke ended up there, from the drab landscape of Eastern Europe. Wondered what else Victor Wingate had learned about him, and how he could be connected to the murders and our current troubles. I was turning over these things in my muddled mind when I saw an officer approach Cass and ask her to step out of line. She complied, handed over her ID. The officer examined it, seemed to tense with confirmation, and placed a hand on her upper arm. He took a firm hold and guided her off, past the metal detectors, into a security room.

  The interaction happened so quickly it took a moment to process. I kept expecting Cass to emerge with carry-on in hand and an annoyed look on her face. Just another excuse for the TSA to feel up an attractive traveler in the name of terrorism prevention . . . but Cass did not emerge. Detective Miller, making good on her threat, I thought. We were both being charged with obstruction, warrants out. I waited for my turn, but no one approached. I was permitted to pass through security without question.

  I walked to our gate in a confused trance. I tried calling and texting Cass. Got no reply. Wondered if I should leave without her. I lowered myself into a chair by the gate and sat paralyzed by indecision. Boarding began. The first-class passengers moved past with entitlement, followed by harried parents traveling with young children, before the grouped pens in coach waited their turn and trudged toward the Jetway. I waited until the entire flight was full. Finally, at last call I pushed myself up and boarded without her.

  Chapter 21

  The flight attendant, familiar with the desperate red-eyed look of certain travelers, handled me with care. When her cart stopped alongside my row, she was reaching for the mini-bottles before she took my order. When I asked for Beam, she gave me two, said she’d be back around. She was a petite brunette with a pixie cut and a second-look beauty. Thought I caught an Irish lilt to her voice. Her nametag read Clara. Her look reminded me of Detective Lea Miller. I resolved to call her when we landed. Apologies were in order, not that that would be enough. Cass was about to face an unpleasant grilling.

  I couldn’t figure why I hadn’t been pulled out of line with her. I had three hours in the sky to contemplate. I tried reading my book—an underlined collection of short stories by Mary Gaitskill called Bad Behavior. I’d been through them many times before and the nihilism in her writing always brought comfort. Now I found myself rereading the opening paragraph of the first story, “Daisy’s Valentine.” A character contemplated how it was fun to think that his life was in danger of further ruin.

  Fun indeed. Why was it always the times when the earth seemed to open and swallow people up that sparked these giddy blasts of endorphins? I couldn’t explain, but it couldn’t be denied. It took the scent of death and ruin for me to sit up and smell. I might have looked the part of resigned alcoholic, but I felt myself awakening inside, renewed to the presence of all the evil that lurked across life.

  Someone had pushed Victor Wingate over a high waterfall. Someone, perhaps the same one, had driven a javelin through the throat of Carl Kruger. A blade had been pressed to my neck in a darkened movie theater. Someone threatened to hurt an eight-year-old boy because he was close to me. These events had all been accumulating abstractions. I hadn’t been conscious of their weight. Like those cocky SEALs, I’d faced my share of horrors. It was hard to get too worked up about anything. I needed a strong hit. But now Cass had been taken. The arm of the law, and whatever it was attached to, had reached out and plucked her from a security line at the airport. Just like that.

  I gave up on reading, tucked the Gaitskill in the seat pocket in front of me, and plugged in my headphones. Turned on some Emmylou Harris, Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town, and listened to her sing about things being all right: “’cause it’s midnight and I got two more bottles of wine . . .”

  Clara returned with two more little bottles of Beam and set them down on my tray with a fresh cup of ice. She gave me a sympathetic wink, and moved on down the aisle with a devilish spring to her step. I wondered how long she’d be staying over in Miami. I could use the company and she seemed to have me pegged from first glance. When she brought a third round, those little potions started to work their magic. I gazed out the window. Outside the skies were bright and blue and cloudless. I sat back and tried to form a plan.

  * * *

  It was ninety degrees on the ground at Miami International. As we shuffled down the aisle into a blast of humidity, I saw Clara offering her smiling farewells to each passeng
er. I palmed one of my cards and slipped it to her on the way off. “Not sure how long you’re staying,” I said. “But I’d love to hear from you.”

  Her smile dropped before she caught it and tried to recover, without success. I’d misjudged pity for affection. “Thank you,” she said with an even mouth. Then she looked over my shoulder at the next passenger and replastered that fake smile.

  I knew I’d never see her again. I felt the eyes of my seatmate on my back, laughing at my bold failed pickup attempt. The cheap thrills of a flight attendant’s attention, the wisdoms of Gaitskill and Emmylou—ladies out of reach who kept reality at bay. And now, here I was alone and sweating in South Florida, with nowhere to go. I took out my phone to search for a place to stay. Found it dead. What did we do before we became slaves to these damn devices? Approached strangers with questions, I guess, used pay phones, lived in the world, as opposed to our modern cloistered existence.

  Outside the terminal I joined the cab line and felt sweat leap from every pore. I wasn’t wired for warmer climates. My body cannot process the upper extremes. Northern European blood, perhaps. Fierce humidity feels like an assault on civility. It sours the mood, soaks the skin. Makes me want to plunge underwater and come up only for meals and strong drink.

  I climbed in the back of a cab with sputtering air-conditioning. A young Cuban with glistening mocha skin turned and asked where I was headed.

  “Coral Gables,” I said.

  “Where in the Gables?” he asked.

  “Got me. Know any cheap hotels with a pool?”

  He drove off. My face was bursting with booze sweat. I stuck my head out the window; the breeze didn’t help. Out the window the air smelled of salt and fetid decay. A white Range Rover pulled next to us at a light. Behind the wheel a lurid Latina woman dressed in green silk and heavy jewels. She glanced over. Her windows were down and she had not a drop of sweat on her.

  “Beautiful day,” said my driver. “So nice this time of year, you know? Not too hot yet, just right.”

  “Says you.”

  “Where you from, my man?” he asked. “First time in Miami?”

  “Manhattan,” I said. “And no, just don’t get down here often.”

  “New York City, got some family up there. It gets plenty hot there too, don’t it? And no beach to cool off.”

  I fiddled with the air vents between the seats. “You mind turning up the AC? I’m dying back here.”

  “Going full blast, man. Sorry, not reaching back there?”

  I wiped a few ounces of sweat from my forehead, looked out at the hazy landscape. The heat rose from every surface. It gave a shimmering unreality to the streets passing by.

  “Got a good place for you,” said my driver. “The ChateauBleau Hotel.”

  “Don’t want anywhere too pricey, okay?”

  “Don’t you worry, it’s cheap, but nice. And a pool too, like you asked.”

  I leaned forward. “What’s your name, buddy?”

  “Miguel,” he said. “You?”

  “Duck.”

  “Like quack, quack?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So, what brings you to Miami with no place to stay, Mr. Duck?”

  “Last-minute business trip,” I said.

  “What do you do?”

  “I look for people. What do you do, Miguel? I mean, besides drive this cab?”

  “You needing some help around town?” he asked. “Like you need some hookups?”

  “I might. Think you can help me?”

  “I think you got into the back of the right cab—yes, I do. I hook you up. What you need?”

  “Not sure yet. When we arrive, can you leave me your contact?”

  “I can do that,” he said.

  He was right about the ChateauBleau. It was cheap. And it had a pool—a kidney-shaped tub of glistening blue alongside the parking lot. Palm trees and cheap white lounge chairs interspersed along the concrete deck. The hotel itself was a three-story, taste-free affair that looked like it was untouched since the seventies. Outside the smoked lobby doors a man and a woman argued. Neither looked like they had slept in a few days. The guy was wearing jean shorts and a loose Miami Dolphins jersey, with a matching Dolphins hat turned backward. He was jabbing at her with a lit cigarette. His body seemed to twitch involuntarily. The woman stood wobbling on unstrapped heels in an orange tube dress that started just above her nipples and ended with the curve of her ass. She pressed a cigarette to painted lips, exhaled, and shook her head angrily. They turned at the sound of the taxi door, stopped talking, and eyed me. Miguel rolled down his window and stuck out a card.

  “My cell’s on the back,” he said. “Call me. I hook you up, anything you need.”

  I thanked him, said I’d be in touch, then stepped past the bickering tweakers and pushed into a stark lobby with a blast of AC and the heavy scent of bleach. A young gay desk clerk, too chipper for his surroundings, told me rooms were a hundred bucks a night. There were plenty of vacancies. He informed me there was a Greek restaurant called Mylos, off the lobby, that was open for lunch, if I was hungry, or after he looked into my watery eyes, just needed a drink.

  “Let me know if I can get you anything else,” he said with a wink. “Anything at all.”

  Nice town. My first two encounters with natives and it seemed I had two leads to the illicit.

  Upstairs, the bleach smell of the lobby was replaced by a thick, musty odor in the room. The space was large by city standards, and barren of warmth. White walls devoid of art, low white ceiling, stained white carpet. The only splash of color was the bloodstains I found at the foot of the bed. I went to open the door to the balcony and found the lock tampered with. A crime scene at one point in its past . . . but the pool below was empty and beckoning. I tossed my bag on the bed, plugged in my phone. Stripped and stepped into my suit, and headed back downstairs.

  I had the pool to myself. Whatever lowlifes and low-rent business travelers used this place, it wasn’t folks inclined to take advantage of the water-filled asphalt hole. The sun was hot on my pale shoulders. I noted the absence of sunscreen, reminded myself not to stay out in it too long. I strapped on my goggles and plunged in.

  The water was a tonic, the only safe place I knew in the world. I stayed under in the silence, exhaled and watched the burst of bubbles float to the surface. I crossed my legs and settled on the bottom of the deep end. I stayed in that position until my lungs ached and my throat constricted, then surfaced with a gasp and looked out through my goggles with renewed perspective. I repeated the process a half-dozen times. Forced myself to stay under a bit longer with each round. Then I floated on my back for a while with eyes shut, soaking in the hard sun.

  For all the suffocating humidity and poor taste, there were certain attractions to life in a tropical city—first among them, the opportunity to swim outdoors daily. It was a different sensation than the indoor pools of the north. No matter how cavernous and clean and fast, a pool indoors is an impostor. It misses the essential point. The experience of swimming should be one of immersion under the sky, below the surface, enveloped by layers of blue. Floating there with my ears submerged in silence, my face up to the sun, I convinced myself that New York had lost its appeal. All I needed for a new, sane life was a daily dip in a pool outside.

  An hour later I returned to my room feeling cleansed and rebooted. I knew I’d stayed out in the sun for too long, but welcomed the coming burn. I needed some color. It was worth a night or two of discomfort. I unplugged my phone, found no messages, tried calling Cass. It went straight to voice mail. Considered calling Juliette, but didn’t have anything to say. Then I remembered Detective Miller.

  “Where are you?” she asked by way of greeting.

  “Listen, I’m sorry.”

  “I asked where you were.”

  “Miami.”

  I listened to her ragged breath, too exasperated to form words.

  “At LaGuardia,” I said, “why did they take Cass and n
ot me?”

  “It wasn’t for obstruction, Duck. You failed to come in as instructed, but that’s not why she’s in custody.”

  “Then why?”

  “Your partner’s been arrested,” she said. “For murder.”

  Chapter 22

  The fix was in. I knew that much. They always suspect it’s the spouse first, and usually it is. But hadn’t Wingate’s death been ruled a suicide? What caused them to reconsider? What had Victor’s crazy sister, Susie, been telling those Keystone Cops on the mountaintop?

  “You need to get back to the city,” said Miller. “I don’t know what you’re doing down there, but I’ve about had it with you.”

  “Murder?” I asked. “Why would Cass call me and ask for my help finding out who killed him? What, the murderer enlists her old partner to investigate a crime that she committed?”

  “A guilty conscience can be an unpredictable thing.”

  “Please. You know damn well this is bullshit. What do they have on her?”

  “Enough to issue a warrant for her arrest.”

  “And I suppose she killed Carl Kruger too?”

  “Where was she when that happened?” she asked.

  “Jesus Christ, Lea. Are you serious?”

  “I am, Duck. Where was she?”

  “Upstate,” I said.

  “Where upstate? We know she was no longer in Victor Wingate’s home.”

  “She said she was staying at an inn nearby. Then she came down to stay with me the next day.”

  “So you don’t know her exact whereabouts at the time of Kruger’s murder, when you were also assaulted, but not seriously hurt. And then Ms. Kimball showed up at your apartment the next morning?”

  “I’m done with this,” I said. “I thought you were smarter than that, Lea.”

  I hung up. Threw my phone against the pillows, shouted, “Fuck!” Then went out to the balcony. I rested my forearms against the hot metal railing and stared down at the pool. The arguing couple from the lobby walked, hand in hand, onto the deck. It appeared they’d made up. The guy pulled his Dolphins jersey over his head to reveal a lean torso covered with tattoos. The woman peeled off her orange tube dress. I couldn’t tell whether it was a black bikini or lingerie beneath. They stepped out of their clothes and joined skin and made out at the edge of the water. The guy took her hand and placed it on the bulge in his jean shorts. She broke the kiss and slapped his ass, pulled away and leapt into the pool. He let out a loud laugh and joined her with a rowdy splash.